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I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, | ; 



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UfJiYilD Si A I Lb OF AMERiCA. 



I 



THE 



BAEBAEITIES OF THE REBELS, 



AS SHOWN TN THEIR 



CRUELTY TO THE FEDERAL WOUNDED AND PRISONERS; IN 
THEIR OUTRAGES UPON UNION MEN ; IN THE MUR- 
DER OF NEGROES, AND IN THEIR UNMAN- 
LY CONDUCT THROUGHOUT 
THE REBELLION. 



BY COLONEL PERCY HOWARD, 

LATE OF TBB ROTAL HORSE GUARDS. 



PROVIDENCE, R. I. 

PRINTED FOR THB AUTHOR. 

1863. 



Tf 



PREFACE. 



The compiler of this pamphlet, who has seen much military service iii 
the wars of Asia and Europe, has, in common with the friends of humani- 
ty and civilization throughout the world, watched with tlie deepest interest 
the progress of the American rebellion. He, too, alike with all who hear 
and read of the progress of events in this unnatural war, has been shocked 
with the barbarities with which the war has been conducted by the South j 
barbarities which no war of ancient or modern times has exhibited, and 
which the savages of America, Africa or Polynesia never approached, 
These cruelties, inflicted by the Confederates upon Federal prisoners, upon 
Union men who would not uphold treason, and upon inoffensive negroes, 
ought to be made known, particularly to those in Great Britain who sym- 
pathize with the rebellious States ; who are aiding them to maintain their 
independence, and in the establishing of an empire " whose foundations," 
to use the words of Vice President Stephens " are based upon slavery." 
The unmanly acts of the rebel government and many of its military oflB- 
cers, which none but barbarians would resort to, deserve also to be made 
known. 

With this view the compiler has cut from the newspapers and from offi- 
cial reports the accounts here presented, the authority for all of which is 
given. He believes that the facts here presented should be read by the 
soldiers in the Federal armies; by the " Copperheads" who sympathize 
with the rebels, and would make peace with them on their own terms, and 
by Europeans generally. 



INDEX 



Page. 

Barbarities of tlie Texans 5 

Murder of Negroes by Texans, at Brashear City 6 

Massacre of Germans in Texas 7 

Persecution of Union Men in Texas 9 

A Baptist Preaclier Shot 9 

A Mazeppa-like Escape 10 

Resistance to Conscription 10 

Depreciation of Confederate Currency Punishable with Death 11 

Hanging Union Men in Kentucky 12 

Hanging Union Men in Tennessee 13 

Rebel Barbarities in Missouri 13 

The Carnival of Murder 15 

Persecution of Loyalists — Horrors of Jeff. Davis's Conscription 17 

111 Treatment of Gov. Johnson's Family 18 

The Horrors of Southern Institutions 19 

Burning of Federal Hospitals and Brutal Treatment of the Sick and 

Wounded 20 

Murder of Negro Teamsters at Murfreesboro, by order of Gen. Bragg 22 

Murder of Negro Servants in a Hospital Boat 23 

How the Bebels Treat our Woimded — Outrage on General Sill's Dead Body. 28 

Proposal of a Rebel Officer to Hang Union Prisoners 26 

Horrid Proposal of Col. Baylor to Entrap and Murder a whole Tribe of In- 
dians 27 

Murder of Negro "Waiters and Cooks upon Union Steamboats 29 

Contrabands driven South or Shot 30 

Unionists of Mississippi Hunted Down by Blood-hounds 30 

Sufferings of Loyahsts in West Virginia 32 

Cruelties of Southern Women 33 

A Southern Woman Desires to Dance in the Blood of a Union Soldier 33 

Treatment of Quakers in North Carohna 34 

Treatment of Federal Prisoners taken at Chancellorsville and elsewhere ... 35 

Horrors of the Knoxville (Tenn.) Jail 37 

Murder of Colonel Cameron 37 

More Rebel Barbarities 38 

Our Wounded at Charleston — The Colored Soldiers 39 

Union Women taken Prisoners — Their cruel Treatment 40 

Butchery of Negroes in Alabama '. 40 



J^ HECOKD 



BARBARITIES OF THE REBELS. 



BARBARITIES OF THE TEXANS. 

A correspondent of the Boston Traveller, writing from New Orleans, 
gives details of most horrid barbarities committed upon Union men, 
that the human mind can conceive of. The most terrible cruelties inflicted by 
savages, are mild to those of the barbarous Texans. The letter referred 
to, is filled with minute details of individual suffering, wherein cruelty, 
ti'eaohery, and cold-blooded murder are combined to an extent that the mind 
is filled with horror at the perusal of such barbarities. Among these is 
the case of Mr. James, who was travelling through Texas, from California. 
One day he was seen talking with some negroes, when he was charged 
with being a Yankee abolitionist, endeavoring to entice the negroes to run 
away. The man was hung in the town of Orange, on which occasion. 
Dr. Huson, a physician of the place, was particularly active, '' mutilating 
the dead body, and while so doing, giving vent to the most horrid senti- 
ments." 

" Dr. Huson cut out the heart and placed it in a glass pickle jar filled 
with Louisiana whiskey, and this murdered man's heart has been seen by 
various persons since his execution, and it can be seen to-day in the drug 
and paint store of Dr. Huson, in the town of Orange. After this they 
actually tried out all the fat from the flesh and divided it among each other 
for the oiling of their firearms. One of the doctors, not Huson, secured 
the head and carried it home, telling his wife to boil it until all the flesh 
should drop off. Mr. Pluinmer could not at the moment recollect this 
brutal doctor's name, but the wife refused to have anything to do with 
the head, and was horror-struck at the barbarous sight. Her husband 
compelled her to place the skull in a large copper kettle and boil it for 
several hours, when he took charge of it, told his wife he had long desired 
an Abolitionist's skull for his study, and now he had got one. 
1 



Charles Saxon, a most inhuman man and daring'robber, gave a ball, a 
week or two after the murder, in honor of the Vigilance Committee, whose 
business was to clean out all anti-slavery people from Texas. He invited 
all the secesh of Orange, of both sexes, to the ball, and as an inducement 
to attend the assembly he told them he should exhibit a genuine ' Yankee ' 
skull. He had borrowed the skull from the doctor, and fastening it to a 
shelf, placed a candle in each eye-socket, and while most of the guests 
looked on with exultation and satisfaction to behold the Yankee head, he 
made the remark that 'Yankee candlesticks were a decided improvement 
over the old-fashioned ones.' 

"Females," the writter adds, "mingled in this wicked and horrible 
orgie." The letter referred to, was reprinted in the New York Tribune, 
Feb. — , 1863, where the details fill two columns. 



MURDER OF TWO THOUSAND NEGROES BY TEXANS, AT BRA- 
SHEAR CITY. 

The following is an extract from a letter fi-om New Orleans, published 
in the New York Tribune, June 30, 1863 : 

" I regret that I have to come to you with a record of cruelties, the like 
of which challenges history for a comparison. A week ago, Brashear City 
was surprised and captured, with all the troops, numbering about 1,000 
men, including nearly all the Ironsides Regiment. Major Morgan, three 
or four officers, and about 150 men, being absent from the regiment at 
the time, are the only ones who are free. Before I come to my story of 
cruelties, I express what is every day being repeated by all hands, that 
the surprise was the most disgraceful and inexcusable of almost any in the 
history of the war. 

Now, my story : From two men who escaped, and from rebel sympa- 
thizers in the city, I learn that the great contraband camp near Brashear 
City was dashed upon by the furious Texans. When in the camp a few 
weeks previously, I found there as many as 6,000 old men, women, and 
children. Of these, 2,000 or 3,000 were removed before the attack. 
Those who remained were slaughtered by the Texan cavalry in the most 
shocking manner. The cry of the sucking babe, the prayer of the aged, 
the shrieks of the mother, had no effect. The slaughter was terrible. 
I thought the massacre at St. Martinsville, where 500 men were found on 
mules striving to reach Gren. Banks' army, and were surrounded, captured. 



and all huno; — ►! thouo;ht that, of a month ao;o, was ])ad cnouo;h ; but this 
eclipses it completely. 

One incident about a few black soldiers at the surprise at Brashear. 
Capt. Allen, one of Gen. Ullman's recruiting officers, had about 150 
recruits, with a couple of recruiting sergeants. They were all armed, 
and on board a car, waiting patiently to start for New Orleans in a few 
moments. The attack was made. The captain was not surprised. He 
and his men made a breastwork of the car, and there they fought the re- 
bels alone, till nearly every one died. Those who survived were instantly 
slain by the ruffians, who hungered for their blood as a lion for his prey. 
Whether the captain survived is a mystery. When, Oh ! when shall the 
nation rise to a comprehension of the infamous character of the wretches 
who thus, in the face of heaven and earth, and in the boasted light of this 
nineteenth century, perpetrate these attrocities within our borders '? God 
enable all our loyal men and women to discard, despise, and disown any 
who talk of ' peace ' with such wretches." 



MASSACRE OF GERMANS IN TEXAS. 

The following article is a translation from Tlie Galveston Union, a Ger- 
man paper, established since the occupation of that place by the Union 
forces. It will prove an incentive to still higher deeds of loyalty and he- 
roism by the Germans now doing service in the ranks of the Union army, 
and may be read with profit by those rebel sympathizers who are oppos- 
ed to the Government bringing the whole South to allegiance. 

" Near the origin of the Gaud Cape and Piedraales, on Johnston's Creek, 
several American and two German families settled but two years ago. Con- 
tending against the roughness of the soil and the wild Indians, they had 
no pleasant position, but they persevered, conscious of their courage and 
their intrepidity, and the lower settlements owed it to them that they had 
less to suffer from the raids of the Indians. These border inhabitants re- 
ceived but little news about the condition of the country and the events of 
the war. All at once they were notified to pay war taxes and to drill. 
The first demand they could not comply with, because they had no money, 
not even corn meal for their families ; and the last orders they could not 
obey because they lived so distant from each other, and their absence 
would leave their familes without protection. 



8 

For these reasons they were considered Union men, and Capt. Duff, a 
notorious rowdy, was sent against the settlers with a company of Tesans. 
^'hey asked the protection of their friends, but had to fly from the over- 
powering numbers of their enemies to the mountains. Many Germans 
and Americans were arrested and imprisoned in Fredericksburg, and Capt. 
Duff was reinforced by 400 men, to operate successfully against the Ger- 
man abolitionists, and hunt up the Yankees. The soldiers again visited 
Johnston's Creek, but found the most of the settlers had fled to the moun- 
tains. Frederick Degener alone they surprised, sleeping under the porch 
of his house ; but awakened by the cries of distress of his wife and the dis- 
charge of muskets of his enemies, who fired fourteen shots after him, he 
fortunately made his escape. 

His house was ransacked and all movable property taken off. Other 
farms in the neighborhood were also searched, the farmers taken prisoners, 
and the houses burnt down. Upon the news of these events, Frederick 
Degener and other fugitives concluded to fly to INlexico. More exiles 
joined them, and soon they had a company of sixty-eight men. But they 
travelled too slowly, and before daybreak, one morning, they were surprised 
by 200 Texans. After a most determined resistance, they were defeated, 
and only twelve of them, covered with wounds, made good their escape. 

All fugitives which afterwards fell into the hands of the enemy were 
hung up. Among these sixty-eight men only five were Americans, the 
others all Germans. A few of the fugitives escaped across the Rio Grande ; 
others, wandering in the mountains and suffering extreme hunger, sought 
protection among American families, but were handed over to their perse- 
cutors and shot or hung. 

To this news, Dr. Adolph Deuai, a celebrated German traveler, who 
for many years had lived in that country, makes the following notes : 

' We know personally the most of these unfortunate victims, who have 
been murdered so mercilessly — not because they rebelled against the Gov- 
ernment, but because they would not act against the Union, and would 
rather fly to Mexico. These murdered Union men were some of the great- 
est benefactors of the State. They had done the hardest pioneer work in 
it ; cleared it from the wild beasts and Indians ; they had saved it to civ- 
ilization through more than one period of pestilence and famine ; secured 
as borderers their present persecutors, the slaveholders, against the inva- 
sions of Indians, and done the best service as volunteers in the Mexican 
war and the wars on the frontier. They placed the arts and sciences in 
Texas as well as they could be found anywhere among the American Ger- 



9 

mans. They furnished the proof that they could cultivate sugar and cot' 
ton without the least danger to health, and increased the riches of the coun- 
try millions of dollars.' 

The above related events are their reward for it. Hundredi^ who suc- 
ceeded in making their escape rove about in the woods, having lost every- 
thing, some even their families. Hundreds are now chased like wild 
beasts through the wilderness of Northwestern Texas, and succumb be- 
cause of the most horrid tortures, their fate never being known to their fel- 
low men." 



WHOLESALE PERSECUTION OF UNION MEN IN TEXAS. 

If anything were needed to show the Government the importance of 
hastening the movement for the occupation of Texas, the reports of the 
horrid atrocities constantly perpetrated by the rebels upon the Union 
citizens of that State supply conclusive testimony on the point, and pre- 
sent, besides, motives for immediate action which it would be inhuman 
hot to respect. Among the many notices furnished by correspondents of 
the butcheries committed by the rebels, the followingi recorded by a cor- 
respondent of the Boston Traveller, is one of the latest and most revolting ; 

" Several months since the Union sentiment cropped out so strongly in 
the counties of Kendall, Kimball, Gillispee and Kerr that they were de- 
clared to be in a state of rebellion against the Confederate Government, 
and a force of five hundred armed men, under one J. M. DufF, was sent 
into the several counties to crush out the Unionists, and confiscate the prop- 
erty of every man who refused to take the oath of allegiance within ten 
days. 

' ' DufF commenced his bloody work by instructing his minions not to 
take prisoner any man found away from his family. In one day he hung 
sixteen Union men, and some time after the bodies of five others were 
dragged out of a water hole in a creek near Fredericksburg, each with a 
stone fastened about his neck. DufF, the leader of the expedition, has 
been promoted for ' gallant services.' " 



A BAPTIST PiftEACHER SHOT. 

The same correspondent narrates the following : 

"In Blanco county recently, a native of Mississippi, who, though a 
slaveholder, was a Union man, was accused of being an abolitionist. He 



10 

shot his accuser, and in company -with his brother escaped on horseback, 
leavini^ his family at the mercy of the rebels. A Baptist preacher, also 
a slaveholder, named Elliott, who chanced to be at the house of the Union' 
ist a few days previous to the shooting affair, was arrested on State authority, 
on suspicion of being in sympathy with him and aiding him to escape. He 
was partially examined, but nothing being proved against him, he was re- 
manded to the custody of the Provost Marshal for further examination at a 
future day. On his way to prison he was seized by an infuriated mob and 
hunar." 



A MAZEPPA-LIKE ESCAPE. 

"' Your readers are familiar with the escape of General A. J. Hamilton 
from Texas, but the General himself may still be ignorant of the fate of 
one of his companions, Glum McKane, whose adventures find no parallel 
save in the tragic play of Mazeppa. When Hamilton escaped from Texas 
a reward of one thousand dollars was offered for his arrest, and he was 
pursued by a party of Texan rangers, who followed him into Mexico, and 
while dogging his path in the rear, they sent messengers ahead, who report- 
ed to the rancheros that the General and his companions were a band of 
thieves. 

" Finding it impossible to obtain food on the road, Hamilton dispatched 
Clum to Camargo for a permit to travel. He was taken prisoner by the 
rebels, stripped naked and bound to a high spirited horse, which was let 
bose among the chapparal. The poor fellow was thus borne several miles, 
the thorns and points of the prickly pear lacerating his body in a shocking 
manner. Weak and bleeding, he was taken across the Kio Grand to San 
Ignacio, to be hung. A handkerchief which his would-be murderers had 
stolen from him was returned as he was entering the town, and this tied 
about his loins constituted his only covering. 

" A relative of his wife interceded and saved his life, and he was taken 
to San Antonio and thrown into prison, where he remained several months 
with a ball and chain attached to his limbs. Finally, however, through 
the efforts of the Governor of New Leon, he was released. 



RESISTANCE TO CONSCRIPTION. 

" Since Magruder took command of the Confederate forces in Texas, 
the work of conscription has been prosecuted with relentless severity. 



11 

All who could not purchase exemption have been forced into the rebel 
army. In one county — San Patricio, containing nine hundred square 
miles — only twelve men are left at home, all the others having been 
taken for soldiers, either by draft or conscription. The result is that none 
are left to cultivate the soil, and the sufferings among the families of these 
men are heart-rending. With flour at one hundred and twenty dollars a 
barrel, and corn at twenty-five dollars per bushel, what chance for exis- 
tence is there for the wife and children of a soldier whose pay is from 
eleven to thirteen dollars per month ? Starvation stares the people in 
the face, and unless the strong arm of the Federal government interposes 
in their behalf, and that, too, right speedily, Texas will become a land of 
famine-stricken widows and orphans. But the people do not submit 
tamely to the despotic sway of Magi-uder. In Fayette and the adjoining 
counties between six and seven hundred men have organized to resist the 
conscription." 



DEPRECIATION OF CONFEDERATE CURRENCY PUNISHABLE 
WITH DEATH. 

'' One of the most heinous of crimes of which a man can be guilty in 
Texas, is speculating in Confederate currency, which is held to be so 
sacred that the slightest attempt to depreciate its value is punished with 
death. Here is a case in point. A man living on the Salou river, near 
San Antonio, was asked if he had steers to sell. He replied in the affirm- 
ative, but added that he preferred not to sell them for paper money. 
The next day two men, well dressed and of gentlemanly deportment, 
drove up to his house in a carriage, and with an air of the utmost friend- 
ship, inquired the way to some point. The farmer came out to give the 
desired information, when he was seized, forced into the carriage, and with- 
out permitting the poor man to bid his family farewell, they hurried him 
away. Two days after, his agonized children, wondering at his long 
absence, started out in pursuit of him, when they were horrified at find- 
ing his lifeless body suspended to a tree. A venerable man, named 
Nelson, whose head was silvered over with the frost of nearly seventy 
winters, and who had amassed a snug property, believing that the Union of 
all the States would best conduce to the interests of each, was hung, his 
wife being compelled to witness his murder, and then, as if to leave no 
habitation in which the ghost of a Unionist might dwell, the murderer^ 
burned down the house." 



12 

HANGING SIXTEEN UNION MEN IN KENTUCKY. 

Sixteen loyal Kentuckians were hung by the rebels about three weeks 
ago, near the Cumljerland Gap. Most of them belonged to Lincoln 
■County, and were captured by a Tennessee regiment attached to Kirby 
Smith's command. Harper King, who lived within three miles of Crab 
Orchard, organized a company for Col. Bramlite's regiment, but after- 
wards resigned on account of ill health. But after IMorgan's entrance 
into the State, the life of King was in constant danger. His house was 
burned, his horses stolen, and all his available property confiscated by 
Morgan and his gang. King and twenty-six of his friends formed them- 
selves into a company for mutual protection, and lived in the woods. 
They all succeeded in procuring arms and ammunition from the Union 
men, and eluded the pursuit of the guerillas during the entii'e reign of 
tlieir chief. 

About this time the larger part of a regiment was made up for Kirby 
Smith's army, and the judge of Lincoln county court was made the lieu- 
tenant colonel. Of course. King and his men were known by this rebel 
colonel and many of his men. On the retreat of Bragg's army, around 
which all the little rebel squads gathered to make their final exit from 
Kentucky, these twenty-six loyal exiles, with their gallant leader, were 
surprised and surrounded by a Tennessee regiment. Some succeeded in 
escaping through the brush, but King and twelve of his men were cap- 
tured. They were taken to headquarters, and by the advice of this rebel 
judge and lieutenant colonel, were condemned as bushwackers. The day 
of their execution was put off until they should get into a safer position, 
for Gen. BuelFs advance was in sight of Bragg's rear, when those thirteen 
were captured. 

They moved on as rapidly as possible to the gap, and on arriving there, 
these men, with six others, were tried as bushwackers, and sixteen con- 
demned. 

Kino- declared he would not be hung, and maintained it to the last. 
His two sons, who belonged to his party, were hung up before him, and 
all the others, so as to exasperate him to the last degree. In the midst of 
all he stood firm, "and when it came to his turn, he would not suffer the 
rope to be adjusted to his neck. They then knocked him on the head and 
then hung him. AnothA* brother of King, fearing the execution of his 
brother, went to the gap, but arrived too late to see him ahve. They had 
buried them all in a common trench. 

He and his friends, on their way home, with the disinterred bodies of 



13 

King and his two sons, came across tlu-ee rebel soldiers, sick and at a 
Union hospital, and hung them to a sycamore tree on the banks of the 
Rockcastle River. The deaths of more by hanging will follow. — Cincin- 
nati Commercial. 

These statements are corroborated by a letter from Mount Vemon, an 
extract from which was published in the New York Tribune. The par- 
ticulars of the hanging of Capt. King and others of his company are 
given. It was a regularly organized company, raised for the protection of 
Crab Orchard. The execution was ordered by Greneral Bragg. 



HANGING UNION IVIEN IN TENNESSEE. 

' A correspondent of the Nashville Union, writes from our army in 
Southeastern Tennessee thus : 

" The barbarity of the bushwackers is unexampled. About ten days 
ago our scouts found the Ijodies of four Union soldiers hanging to one tree. 
They appeared to have been hanging for two or three days. 

" A few days since, while I was out with a scouting party, we found 
the body of a well dressed young lady, shot through the breast ! 

" We discovered that she belonged to a respectable family, two miles 
distant, every member of which had been murdered. She had evidently 
been shot while tiying to escape. 

" I had partaken of the hospitality of her ftither's table but three days 
before ; and as I kneeled by her side, and felt no pulse, no breath, no sign, 
I could but think of my sister, of my mother, of my friend. 

" Oh God ! that flesh and blood should be cheap. 

" We buried her there, among the rocks and pines of the mountain, 
and seven of Ohio's sons vowed by her grave that her death should be 
avenged." 



REBEL BARBARITIES IN MISSOURI. 

The following official report describes rebel barbarities : 

"Headquarters Fifth Cavalry, Missouri State Militia, 
Independence, Mo., January 11, 1863. 
" General : — Private Johnson, of the artillery company, was brought 
in dead to day. He is the fifth one mui-dered last week, four from the 
artillery and one from the militia. If you could see their mangled bodies 
2 



14 

you would not wonder why it is that I write you that guerrillas' wives 
should be forced out of the country. They were all wounded, and killed 
afterward, in the most horrible manner that fiends could devise ; all were 
shot in the head, and several of their faces are terribly cut to pieces with 
boot heels. Powder was exploded in one man's ear, and both ears cut off 
close to his head. Whether this inhuman act was committed while he was 
alive or not, I have no means of knowing. To see human beings treated 
as my men have been by outlaws, is more than I can bear. 

" Ten of these men, armed as they are, with their wives and children 
to act as spies, are equal to twenty-five of mine. Guerrillas are threaten- 
ing Union women in the county. I am arresting the wives and sisters of 
some of the most notorious ones, to prevent them from carrying their 
threats into execution. They have also levied an assessment upon the 
loyal men of the county, and are collecting it very fast. There are many 
complaints on the subject, as some of those assessed claim to be Southern 
sympathizers. Some of the Union men have asked me if the order sus- 
pending your assessments applies to the one spoken of above. I tell 
them I do not know — to ask J. Brown Hovey. 
" Yours truly, 

"W. K. PENICE, 
" Colonel Fifth Cavahy, M. S. M, 

" General Ben. Loan, Jefferson City, Mo." 



A Brookfield (Mo.) correspondent of the St. Louis Democrat furnishes 
the following : 

" A cold-blooded murder was committed in Miami, Saline county, 
Missouri, on Thursday, the 18th of June, of which as yet no correct ac- 
count has appeared in print. 

*' Mr. Daniel De Sheila, who was in the early part of the present war, 
a commissioned ofi&cer in a company of independent scouts under Sigel, 
and was discharged on the expiration of his term of service, has since then 
(until the last six months) been co-operating with General Loan and 
others, in every way that intellectual energy and jjatriotism could devise 
to forward the interests of the Union and punish treason, thereby render- 
ing himself obnoxious to traitors and copperheads, and their emissaries, 
the bushwackers. 

"On the 18th, Mr. De Sheila was followed from Petite Saw Plains to 



IS 

Miami by a party of from twenty to twenty-four men, and probably would 
have been shot before reaching the town had he not been riding with la- 
dies. He left them on entering the town to go into the post office, when 
he saw the band approaching, and as they wore the federal uniform he 
went towards them, but recognizing some of them as rebels, he guessed 
their errand, and being unarmed, returned to the post office, and asked 
the postmaster what to do. The postmaster told him to stay where he 
was. He replied that he would never be taken alive. He was then 
shown a back door through which he attempted to escape. But the rebels 
missing him, sent two mounted men to intercept him, which they did, and 
immediately fired on him, causing him to fall. They then demanded his 
surrender. He said, ' Never ! never ! ' Upon which they rode closer to 
him and shot him six times through the head and breast ; any one of the 
shots would have been fatal. When they rejoined the band, they re- 
marked that they ' had left him in hell with Lyons.' 

" This version of the affair was given by one of the rebels. The fol- 
lowing night the same party attacked the house of William Rennick, of 
Petite Saw Plains, a Union man who had been in the service, and whose 
^son is now in a Missouri regiment. There were five men, two young la- 
dies, daughters of Mr. Rennick, and some childi'en in the house. The 
girls and children asked the attacking party to let them go from the house 
to a place of safety. They were told with oaths to send the men out or 
they would all be burned together. The house was set on fire, but the 
night being damp, the house would not burn. There were but two rifles 
in the house, and with these two the five men repulsed twenty-five. No 
one in the house was injured, although the house was perforated with 
bullets." 



THE CARNIVAL OF MURDER. 

There are at this day not less than twenty thousand officers in the Union 
armies exposed not merely to the hardships, perils and suflferings of war, but 
to the superadded horrors of cold-blooded murder. Any causal surprise or 
ambush, any disabling wound which stretches one of them on the ground 
in the path of an advancing rebel force,, sVibjects him to the penalty of a 
felon's death. Let us present more conspicuously the passages in Mr. 
Jeff. Davis's Message, of the 12th inst., wherein that penalty is threat- 
ened : 

'* The public journals of the North have been received, containing a 



16 

proclamation, dated on the first day of the present month, signed by the 
President of the United States, in Which he orders and declares all slaves 
within ten of the States of the Confederacy to be free, except such as are 
found within certain districts now occupied in part by the armed forces of 
the enemy. We may well leave it to the instincts of that common hu- 
manity wliich a beneficent Creator has implanted in the breasts of our fel- 
low-meu of all countries, to pass judgment on a measure, by which several 
millions of human beings of an infefrior race— peaceful and contented la- 
borers in their sphere — are doomed to extermination, while at the same 
time they are encouraged to a general assassination of their masters by the 
insidious recommendation ' to abstain from violence unless in necessary self- 
defence.' Our own detestation of those loho have attempted the most ex- 
ecrable measure recorded in the history of guilty man is tempered hy 
profound contempt for the impotent rage tchich it disrlgSes. So far as 
regards the action of this Government on such criminals as may attempt its 
execution, I confine myself to informing you that I shall— unless in your 
wisdom you deem some other course more expedient — deliver to the several 
State authorities all commissioned oncers of the United States that 
may hereafter he captured hy c^ir forces in any of the States embraced 
in the proclamation, that they may be dealt with in accordance with the 
laws of those States providing for the punishment of criminals engaged 
in exciting servile insurrection. The enlisted soldiers I shall continue to 
treat as unwilling instruments in the commission of these crimes, and shall 
direct their discharge and return to their homes on the proper and usual 
parole." 

In point of fact, a great majority of the "enlisted soldiers" heartily ap- 
prove and indorse the President's proclamation of freedom — a far larger 
proportion of them than of their oificers. But neither class is in the least 
degree responsible for that most righteous and salutary act of the Presi- 
dent, as Davis well knows. And neither will ask any mercy at his hands. 

Jeff, proposes to murder all Union officers because his " detestation " of 
the Proclamation of Freedom is " tempered by profound contempt." But 
for this, he would probably have ordered om' soldiers as well as officers to 
be roasted alive — that being the discipline often accorded to inciters of 
slave insurrections. 

President Lincoln proclaims the freedom of the slaves of rebels. Jeff- 
declares that this dooms " several millions" of "peaceful and co^^<e?^<ec? la- 
borers " to " extermination." By whom? Where? How? IFe, certainly, 
shall not so treat them ; and if they are indeed " peaceful and contented," 



It 

why should Jeff. V And if no servile insurrection is incited by our officers, 
nor even attempted, what are they to be murdered for? Suppose an at^ 
tempt to convict them under " the hiws of these States provided for the 
punishment of criminals," what evidence of criminal attempt or act oil 
their part is to justify a jury in finding a verdict of Guilty ? " — Neiv York 
Post. 

There is no doubt that the blood-thirsty Davis intended carrying out 
his threat, and several officer^ of the Union anuy who had been taken pris- 
oners, were transferred, in conformity with the order of the rebel President* 
to the authorities of the State in which they were captured. The inten- 
tion of the Governors of these States was to try these officers for inciting 
an insurrection among the slaves; and punish them in accordance with their 
laws for that offence, which is death. To what extent this brutal order of 
Davis was carried out we are in ignorance. The names of several U. S. 
officers who were captured in Alabama were announced in the Southern 
papers as being condemned to suffer death ; but we are of opinion that 
the large number of rebel officers who fell into our hands, immediately 
after, alone deterred Davis and the rebel governors for carrjing out their 
threat. 



PERSECUTION OF LOYALISTS OR UNION MEN. HORRORS OF 
DAVIS'S CONSCRIPTION. 

The Clilcago Trxhiine contains a letter fi'om Memphis, Mississippi, dated 
Feb. 11, 1863, giving an account of the frightful atrocities committed by 
the officers sent by Davis to enforce the conscription act in East Tennessee, 
Northern Alabama and Mississippi. In the first named district, thd 
loyal men are numerous. Many of these escaped through the mountains 
to Kentucky, where they joined the Union army. In Alabama and Mis'- 
sissippi the poor creatures are too distant from the Union lines to make 
their escape. "Here/' says the writer, " the most perfect reign of terror 
the world ever saw is now experienced by the unfortunate residents. In 
Mississippi, not satisfied with the conscription act of the Confederate Con- 
gress, which compelled all men from 18 to 40 to serve in the army, the 
legislature of that State has recently enacted a law extending the act to 
all from 40 to 60 years of age. The more thoroughly to enforce this law, 
Mississippi has been laid off into districts, twenty miles square, and a re- 
cruiting Colonel appointed for each district. 

" In Northern Alabama," continues the writer, "it is even worse- 



IS 

There are many Union men in that section of the State, and the minions 
ttf JefF. Davis are busy in their efforts to force them into the Confederate 
ranks. The Union men have lain hid out in woods and caves rather than 
he taken as conscripts. This induced a novel hunt for them, and guer- 
rillas and blood-hounds have been put upon their track, and many a poor 
victim has been smelled out in this way. Not long since, a young girl, 
carrying food to her father who was hiding in a cave, was attacked by one 
of these blood-hounds and torn to pieces. 

" It is estimated that not less than 1,000 Union men from Mississippi 
and Alabama have made their way to Corinth, where Gen. Dodge made 
all possible provision for them. 

^' Gen. Dodge sent out and brought in the families of persecuted and 
downtrodden Union men, and has thus established a sort of encampment 
or home for all their families at Purdy, where they are likely to be free 
from persecution. 

"Among those who recently suffered pei'secutions are the following: 
Abraham Kennedy and J. A. Mitchell, of Hacketboro Settlement, in Mon- 
roe county, Ala., have been hung by the rebels for indulging in Union 
proclivities. Mr. Hall, wife and daughter, of the same county, have been 
shot, and the latter killed. Peter Lewis, who was by his immediate neigh- 
bors suspected of Union proclivities, was hunted down by blood-hounds, 
and captured. The houses of J. A. Palmer, Wesley Williams and other 
Union men, were burned over their famihes' heads, and the people in the 
neighborhood notified that if they harbored them, their own houses would 
be burned. Mr. Peterson, living at the head of Bull Mountain, was killed 
for Union sentiments. Two women in Uawimbia county were torn to 
pieces by blood-hounds. 

"In addition to the foregoing, hundreds of families have been driven 
out of Alabama, and have reached Corinth on foot, without food or 
clothing. Some of them are old men, eighty years of age." 



ILL TREATMENT OF GOVERNOR JOHNSON'S FAMILY. 

Parson Brownlow writes from Cincinnati to the Philadelphia Press : 
"The family of Governor Johnson are here. They were most shame- 
fully treated by the rebels on the way to Nashville. And, although they 
were sent out by the rebel authorities, under a flag of truce, they were 
arrested at Murfreesboro', by the guerrillas under Forest, kept under 



guard all night, in a room without fire, and next day marched back to 
Tullahoma, a distance of more than thirty miles, and after being detained 
there for a time, were returned and sent through the lines. The Gov- 
ernor's wife was in bad health, and this exposure and treatment has well 
nigh killed her. She is now confined to her bed, and my opinion is that 
she will not recover. With passports, and the authority of Jeff. Davis's 
government to come out, this sick woman and her helpless cliildren must 
be arrested, kept in the cold, starved and insulted, and marched to and 
fro upon the road, because Grovernor Johnson is not loyal to the hell-born 
and hell-bound Southern Confederacy ! Tliere is not among them even 
the honor common to thieves. One branch of this bogus government 
won't respect what another orders." 



THE HORKORS OF SOUTHERN INSTITUTIONS. 

Under this head the Troy Times prints a letter from Jlary F. Clark, 
in support of the statements of General Butler, as to the horrors of South- 
ern society. The Times vouches for Mrs. Clark, whose position and 
character affiird sufficient guaranty of her truthfulness. We condense the 
following statement from her letter : 

" I once resided in South Carolina ; returned to my Northern home 
but two years before the present rebellion. I was governess for six years 
in the family of the son of ex-Governor Richardson. While there, I was 
told by Colonel Richardson's own white daughters all I know of the 
degredation occasioned by slavery. I desired to tell its' most degrading 
features to those whom I have so often heard advocating a continuance of 
negro slavery ; but I dared not, for the facts seemed too indelicate for a 
female to publish. But, sir, these are remarkable times ; and should I 
hold my peace, even the very stones would cry out ; for slavery is a 
wrong to the planter's slave and to the planter's daughters." 

Referring to Gen. Butler's statement, that a judge of New Orleans de- 
bauched his daughter, and then married her to a slave, she says : 

" I wish to state that it is the custom of the South Carolina aristocracy 
for fathers to have criminal intercourse with their own daughters. Col. 
Richardson had four beautiful daughters, two of whom yielded to his hell- 
ish persuasions. The third daughter had for four years refused to listen to 
the base propositions of her father. He hunted her from room to room, 
until in very anguish of spirit she came to my room, and hid her face in my 



20 

lap, and told me all her awful trial. I could not believe the child ; but 
she told me it was true — that her father gave her no peace. He seemed 
determined to gratify his hellish lust. He would come to her bedside 
when she was suffering from sick headache, and attempt to take improper 
liberties with her person. She begged me to come and sit with her in her 
room whenever she was confined to her bed, because she was afraid of her 
own father, who had ruined two of her sisters. She said that one day her 
cousin Camilla came to visit there. She told her cousin how her father 
had behaved for the four years past toward her, hoping her cousin Camilla 
would strengthen her. But Camilla had been ruined by her own father, 
years before, when she was young, and dared not be woman enough to re- 
fuse her father anything he might wish. Her advice to her cousin Mary 
was this, ' Die before you yield.' 

' ' This is the effect of the institution of slavery. Some may say they 
cannot see how slavery is responsible for these family evils of which Gren. 
Butler speaks, and of which I affirm. The secret is just here : from very 
infancy the planters' sons are gratified in everything they desire. I could 
tell you some startling facts of the boyhood of these planters' sons, — facts 
communicated by Col. Richardson's own white daughters — but I forbear. 
From youth to manhood they go on gratifying every lust, simply because 
the institution of human bondage puts it in their power to do so ; when 
they become fathers of black and white children, all must be sacri- 
ficed to their overgrown lust. Shall not the prayers of the fair daughters 
of South Carolina be heeded ? Shall not this evil, slavery, be rooted from 
our land? " 



OFFICIAL REPORT OF DR. H. R. WIRTZ, OF THE BURNING OF 
HOSPITALS AND BRUTAL TREATMENT BY THE REBELS. 

The following has been forwarded to the headquarters of the anny here : 

Medical Director's Office, \ 
Holly Springs, Miss., Dec. 30, 1862. \ 

Sir : — I have the honor to report that I remained behind the advance 
of the army for the purpose of establishing a large general hospital at Hol- 
ly Springs. I took a building that had been built for an armory by the 
Confederates, consisting of six large rooms, each two hundred and fifty 
feet long, and numerous outhouses, and after three weeks incessant labor, 
in which I was greatly assisted by Surgeon Powers, of the 7th Missouri, 



21 

I had everything prepared for tlic accommodation of two thousand 
men. 

The acting medical purveyor of the Southern portion of the department 
had been ordered to bring all his supplies to this hospital, which he did ; 
and on the morning of the 20th of December one of the most completely 
finished hospitals in the army was ready to receive its sick. On that morn- 
ing the town of Holly Springs was taken by the Confederate forces under 
Gen. Van Dorn. As soon as I discovered the enemy were in possession of 
the town I repaired to the headquarters of the rebel General, near the town, 
and made a formal request that the armory hospital should not be burnt, 
entering my solemn protest on the subject, as the Confederates had already 
set fire to a railroad depot and a commissary store house, and had declared 
their intention to destroy all the houses and other buildings occupied by our 
troops. I received the assurance by Gen. Van Dorn's Adjutant that the 
armory hospital should not be burnt, but that it would not be protected by 
a guard. Satisfied with this I returned to my quarters, but had not been 
there an hour when I was informed that the building was in flames, and 
thus this Jine structure with '2000 bunks, an immense lot of drugs and 
surgical apparatus, thousands of blankets, sheets and bed sacks, was 
soon in ashes. This proceeding, in violation of an express promise 
and all rules of civilized warfare, is an evidence of the barbarity and want 
of principle in the Confederate officers. But this is not all. An attempt 
teas made to destroy the general hospital located in the main square, and 
which at the time, contained over Jive hundred sick. A quantity of ord- 
nance stores had been deposited in the building in the next block to the 
hospital, and by the order of Gen. Van Dorn, as stated by the officer who 
had charge of the matter, the barrels of powder and boxes containing shell 
and cartridges, were taken out and piled up nearly in front of the hospital 
and set fire to. Two medical officers protested against this wanton act, 
but their requests were treated with contempt, and before there was time to 
remove the sick, the walls and windows of the hospital were riddled with 
flying balls and shell, and finally a terrific explosion took place which shook 
the entire building, destroying almost every window and door in the estab- 
lishment, wounding about twenty men, and creating a scene of the wildest 
conftision. A large number of buildings on the public square took fire 
from the explosion, and it was only by the utmost efforts, that the hospital 
was preserved as a shelter for the men in the night air, together with the 
medical officers who assisted me in taking care of the sick and wounded on 
that trying day. 
3 



22 

I thought tiie rebels had now done us all the harm in theii- power, but 
to injury, insult was to be added, in a manner I hope never to witness 
again. A rebel cavalry officer named Brewster, who stated that he had 
been detailed by Van Dorn to march off sick men that had not been pa- 
roled, collected together, pistol in hand, 150 sick soldiers, forced them to 
rise from their beds and fall in line, threatening to shoot the medical officer 
who expostulated with him, and actually made the poor fellows, suffering 
from typhoid fever and pneumonia, start with him on the road. The men 
fell down in the street, and had to rise again for fear of being shot, when 
they were so weak that the slightest motion was agony. On being impor- 
tuned if there was anything in the name of humanity that could be done 
to induce him to cease his brutal proceedings, he finally consented to let 
them alone on a recognition paper, signed by all the surgeons, represent- 
ing that the men were too sick to walk, and their removal was an impos- 
sibility. 

(Signed) H. R. Wirtz, 

Surgeon U. S. Ariiiy and Medical Director 13th Army Corps. 



THE MURDER OF NEGRO TEAMSTERS AT MURFREESBORO, BY 
ORDER OF THE REBEL GEN. BRAGG. 

The wanton murder near Murfreesboro, of 20 negi'o teamsters, who were 
in the service of the Unionists, appears to be taken as a matter of course 
by the advocates of the South in this country. We must presume that 
they know theii* friends, and see no i-eason to be surprised. And yet 
there are circumstances in this case which should make them anxious for 
a reputation with which they have so far involved their own. These ne- 
groes were not killed in the pursuit of any military purpose. They were 
not in the battle-field ; they were not making armed resistance. They were 
on the turnpike-road, driving their wagons, when the Confederate party 
came up. The train which they were conducting was captured, and it was 
after that object had been gained that the negroes were taken out and shot 
in cold blood. 

It is important to notice that this butchery was perpetrated, not in some 
corner of Secessia, by agents out of the reach of authority or pub- 
lic opinion ; it was the work of officers of the great Confederate army of 
the West, under the orders of Gen. Bragg. There was nothing in the at- 
titude of the negroes to make a sudden resolution necessai-y ; we must. 



23 

tberefore, assume that their murder was the effect of a previous determina' 
tiou. 

We forbear to anticipate the apologies that may be offered for this atro- 
cious slaughter of men who had committed no crime to deserve death. 
Travelers who have visited the slave States say that if ever England 
should recognized the South, and come into close intimacy with its people, 
we shall all be astounded at the character of those whom we have choseA 
to patronize. It seems that we have not to wait for that contingency. 
The inevitable hour when the true issues of this war were to be disclosed 
has come, and the South unfurls the black flag — its own flag — accord- 
ingly.— Z)a% Mies, Jan. 20, 1862. 



Murder of negro servants, in a hospital boat. 

After the battle of Stone River, or Murfi-eesboro, a Federal hospital boat, 
when convening the wounded, and bearing the customary flag indicating its 
object, was fired upon and boarded by the rebels. Some fifteen negroes 
emjjloyed as servants on board the boat were killed. Others endeavoring 
to escape, were shot in the water while clinging to the sides of the boat. 
Tins inhuman treatment was not the work of guerrillas, for whose actions 
the rebel authorities might endeavor to excuse themselves, but was done by 
soldiers under the conuuaud of a Colonel Wade. Greneral Wheeler's Ad- 
jutant General was among the officers present. This Wheeler was pro- 
moted for the raid of which the attack on the hospital boat and murder 
of the negroes was the principal feature. 

These facts were made known in a private letter from the Headquarters of 
the Fourteenth Army Corps, near Murfreesboro, and pubUshed in the 
New York Evening Post, Mcuvh 11, 1863. 



HOW THE REBEL SOLDIERS TREAT OUR DEAD AND 
WOUNDED.— GEN. SILL. 

After every battle with the rebels, all accounts agree as to the diabolical 
practices committed by their soldiers upon our dead and wounded who 
fall into their hands. Every species of cruelty and malignity is manifest- 
ed by our enemy towards these unfortunates, which the fortunes of war 
have placed at their disposal. Of their bai-barities on the bodies of the 



24 

Union soldiers who foil at the first battle of Bull Kuu, we have elsewhere 
spoken. In North Carolina thej committed the vilest outrages upon the 
bodies of those who fell in the expedition to Goldsboro. It cannot, there- 
fore, be asserted that guerrillas, or camp followers, or some particular com- 
pany of tbeir semi-civilized poor whites, or the " savage Texans " connnit- 
ted these barbarities. The same hellish propensities prevail every where 
where the in.stitution of slavery exists. Cruelty, brutality, ferocity and in- 
humanity are the natural offsprings of slavery. It gives rise to, and ma- 
tures these demoniacal passions, and a civil war furnishes these human 
devils with the means of gratifying their propensities. 

It was stated some time since that the rebels had ordered the body of 
General Sill, who was killed at Murfreesboro', to be buried with military 
honors. This was afterwards denied, and we now find in the Nashville 
Union a letter from Surgeon Bowman of the twenty-seventh Illinois vol- 
unteers upon the subject, which we quote : 

" Camp on Stone River, South of Murfkeesboro, Tenn., ) 

January :20, 1863. ) 
" Editor of the Nashville Union : 

" In your issue of the 17th instant, in your editorial under the head of 
'A Perfidious People,' in speaking of atrocities by the rebels, you say ; 
' The dead body of General Sill, whom barbarians would have admired for 
his chivalrous courage, was stripped on the field of battle. The subse- 
quent lionor of a military burial by the enemy was the smallest reparation 
they could make for this fiendish barbarism. The truth of history com- 
pels me to state that the inference that General Sill was buried by the re- 
bels with military honors is not correct. They did not bury him at all, 
whatever they may have ordered done. I was taken prisoner while attend- 
ing to our wounded on the 31st ultimo. The enemy charged valiantly 
upon our extemporized field hospital, where we had up four red flags, 
fired a volley into us, and then took all prisoners who could be moved- 
My colonel, F. A. Harrington, of the twenty-seventh Illinois, was very 
severely wounded. We were taken to Murfreesboro on the afternoon of the 
31st. Colonel H. died on the evening of the next day. On the morn- 
ing of the 2d inst. I procured an order for an extra fine coffin, same as 
General Sill's was. Found the undertaker with no lumber but gi'een oak 
and poplar, and but little of that, and beseiged by a crowd of importunate 
applicants for coffins, boxes, anything in which to bury their dead friends. 
I laid off my coat, and with the help of a negro, completed a rough coffin, 
the best the place afforded, and same as General Sill's. I procured the 



25 

same hoarse and driver, so as to bury my friend beside General Sill. Tiic 
driver took us to the spot where lie had left the body of General Sill. Wc 
found it in the fence corner unburied, no o-rave duo;, and no detail for that 
purpose. It was too late in the day (Friday January 2d,) to go back to 
town to make arrangements. So, after borrowing some tools, which we 
procured only by energetic representations to the rebels, we dug a grave 
large enough to contain both coffins ; and with a feeling of sadness, to 
which language cannot do justice, we lowered them to their resting place, 
side by side, and heaped the earth over them, putting up the head-board I 
had prepared with my own hands.'' 

A correspondent of the Boston Trcn'elkr says : 

" It will be remembered that at Whitehall some of our dead were not in- 
tered, the rebel sharp-shooters picking off the men who went for them, 
bearing the hospital flag. It has been found that all such had been com- 
pletely stripped of their clothing ; some of them had been considerably 
mutilated, while many had been so slightly covered with earth that unclean 
animals had partially exhumed and stiU further mutilated them. And 
this was done, or permitted to be done, by persons who are very fond of 
appealing to the Divine Judge for the rectitude of their intentions, and 
who are tiring the ears of the nations with their complaints of cruelty and 
barbarism of their antagonists." 

To the same effect as the above are the reports from the field of Mur- 
freesboro, where Bragg himself violated all decency and humanity. He 
violated his own flag of truce, robbed his prisoners of their blankets and 
overcoats, encouraged the plunder of both officers and men who were cap- 
tured by him, and approved almost every other act of which a fiend can be 
supposed to be capable. A ccftrespondent of the Cincinnati Commercial 



" The body of General SiU, and those of other officers and privates slain 
in the battle of Stone river, which fell into their hands, were barbarously 
plundered, and captive officers were deprived of their personal property. 

" Surgeons, who were sacred, not only by the laws of war, but by spe- 
cific agreement with the rebel authorities, from the usual disposition of 
prisoners, have been robbed of everything they possessed, except the cloth- 
ing they wore while in actual custody. 

" Dr. Freeman, Assistant Surgeon of the one hundred and fourth 
Illinois, complains in writing that his horse, equipments, wearing apparel^ 
&c., and those of Dr. Zipperler, of the one hundi-ed and eighth Ohio, 
were taken by Morgan's men, while the complainants were dressing the 



26 

Wounds of friends and foos, and that when complaint was made to Morgan 
he would not make restitution. And so on for quantity. 

" These rebel people seem liiore perfidious tlian Spartans. They re- 
gard none of the obligations of honor which bind the rest of mankind. 
They take oaths but to violate them ; give pledges of the most solemn 
character that they may escape custody, to deceive those who credited their 
representations. They prove themselves a race of Cretans as well as 
Spartans, in their disposition to steal and violate their pledges of honor. 
If the ignorant only were guilty, there would be hope for them, but the 
most flagrant acts of infamy are done and encouraged by leading people." 

From other fields we have the same reports of inhumanity. In Tenn- 
essee and Mississippi gangs of guerrillas eveiywhere haunt our outposts, mur- 
dering in cold blood the innocent and unwaiy ; digging from their graves, 
and stripping of the clothing, the bodies of all within their reach ; heaping 
alike upon the living and the dead, indignities such as even Attalla would 
have blushed to commit ; and yet there are men, all over the North, living 
in the midst of schools and churches and all the influence of Christian cul- 
ture and enlightenment, who uphold the caUse which depends for success 
upon such infernal resources, and who, false to nature and to nurture, 
desire the erection, on the ruins of the Repablic, of a nationality embody- 
ing as its vital principle the barbarism out of which alone atrocities so sav^ 
age and inhuman could proceed ! 

A dispatch from Murfreesboro, dated December 31, says : 

" The enemy during yesterday harassed our rear with their cavalry, and 
captured some of our wounded men near Nolinsville. Rebel guerrilla 
bands attacked and burned our army wagons, ambulances, etc., and acted 
most outrageously, throwing the sick and wounded into the roads to die. 

Major Slenmer and Captain King, who were being conveyed away 
wounded from the battle-field in an ambulance, were captured by the re- 
bels, taken four miles away, and then paroled and thrown out on the road." 
Harper's Weekly. 



PROPOSAL OF A REBEL OFFICER TO HANG UNION PRISONERS. 

Among the prisoners recently captured by General John McNeil, in 
Southeast Missouri, and since sent to St. Louis, is a Captain R. T. Sick- 
els, who was rebel Provost-Marshal of Bloomfield, Mo. On the person of 
Sickels was found a letter instructing him summarilly to hang certain per- 



27 

sous, in order to save expense, and to prevent tliera from demoralizing' the 
rebel public sentiment ! . The following is the infamous letter : 

" Office Provost-Maksiial, ) 
Pocahontas, Ark., January 15, 181)3. ) 
" Captain R. T. SicMs : 

" Dear Sir : The prisoner you sent up has been received, and has 
been duly forwarded. 

" In future you will deal summarily with those men who are guilty of 
criminal offences, for when they are sent up to headquarters they are an 
expense, without being any benefit to public sentiment. Captain McKie 
says it would be better to have them hung than to put ourselves tcj any fur- 
ther trouble. Yours, &c., 

"M. H. KiBLEE, 

" Captain, Provost Marshal, Randolph Co,, Ark." 
The guerrilla captain on whom the above precious document was found 
is now in a United States military prison. There are proofs that he did 
not fail to comply witli tlie execrable instructions given him. 



HORRID PROPOSAL OF THE REBEL MILITARY COMMANDER OF 
ARIZONA, COLONEL BAYLOR, TO ENTRAP AND MURDER A 
WHOLE TRIBE OF INDIANS. 

The following extract from the New Orleans Delta tells its own story : 
We are indebted to Captain Longley, of the Lst Texas Cavalry, for the 
following choice contributions to the history of the rebellion, taken from 
Texas papers. " Col." Baylor's position, as a rebel alone, entitles him to 
the attention of the Delta. Personally, he is just such a scoundrel as his 
official acts proclaim him. It is a very significant commentary on the char- 
acter of the rebellion that such a notorious bully, blackguard, and horse- 
thief, should be entrusted with important duties in the service of the Rich- 
mond oligarchy. Texas needs no information concerning him. 

The civilized world cannot read the extract given below — cut from a 
Houston paper — without some hardly favorable reflections on the nature of 
the insurrection, its leaders and agents. Baylor has borne for some time 
a considerable reputation as an Indian fighter, from the fact that by just 
such a piece of abominable treachery as he delegates to " Capt." Helm, in 
the order here published, he managed to massacre a large number of In- 
dians, principally women and childi-en, some time since, and was enabled 



28 

in this way to make a magnificent display of scalps as the trophies of his 
heroism. The order of Capt. Helm was, of coixr.se, not sent to tlie papers, . 
but was published at a later day by " Gen." Sibley, with comments. 

The " General " took occasion also to send the order to Richmond, and 
as a return for the notice bestowed upon him, Baylor undertakes in a later 
publication, given here also, to ventilate the character of Sibley. It is not 
likely that he much misrepresents the notorious Sibley, whose skedaddling 
exploits in the rebel sei-vice since he turned traitor and deserted the United 
States army, where he held a major's commission, are very well known to 
the public. They are par nobile fratrum, and not likely to say anything 
too bad of each other. Any criticism on Baylor's production would be 
time wasted. Rascality and cowardice united had never a more damning 
exposition. There can be no question whatever as to the authenticity of 
the documents : 

" Headquarters Second Regiment T. M. R., ) 
Mesilla, March 20, 18G2. ) 
" Captain Helm, Commanding Arizona Guards: 

Sir : I learn from Lieutenant Colonel Jackson that the Indians have 
been in your post, for the purpo.se of making a treaty. The congress of 
the Confederate States has passed a laiv declaring extermination to all 
hostile Indians. Ton will therefore use all possible means to pursuade 
the Apaches, or any other tribes, to come in for making peace ; and, when 
you get them together, kill all the grown Indians, and take the children 
prisoners, and sell them to defray the expenses of killing the Indians. 

Buy whiskey and such other goods as may be necessary for the Indians, 
and I will order vouchers given to cover the amount expended. 

Leave nothing undone to insure success, and have a sufficient number 
of men around to allow no Indians to escape. Say nothing about your or- 
ders until the time arrives, and be cautious how you let the Mexicans know 
it. If you can't trust them, send to Captain Aycock at this place, and he 
will send thirty men from his company. Better use the Mexicans, if they 
can be trusted, as bringing troops from here might excite suspicion with the 
Indians. 

To your judgment I entrust this important matter, and look for success 
against these cursed pests who have already murdered over one hundred 
men in this Territory. JOHN R. BAYLOR, 

Col. Commanding 2dRegt. T. M. R." 
The infamous Baylor, on learning that Gen. Sibley had sent his order to 
massacre the Indians to Jeff. Davis, had the impudence to come out with 



29 

a defence of his conduct in the columns of the San Antonio (Texas) pa- 
pers, which, it appears, were horrified with the proposal of Baylor. The 
rufiian Colonel does not deny the allegation, but attempts to palliate his 
conduct. " Tliere is no question," he says "about the genuineness of my 
order. I issued it, and meant precisely what I said ; and if I am so for- 
tunate as to return to Arizona, I intend to get rid of the Indians anyway 
I can." 

Baylor is quite severe upon Gren. Sibley for being so shocked with his 
order. He calls him "an infamous coward, and a disorace to the Con- 
federate army ; " denounces him " for all that is mean and worthless," 
and accuses him with having ' ' doubled himself up in an ambulance du- 
ring the battle of Yalverde, and hoisted a hospital flag on it for his pro- 
tection." He furthermore thinks that Sibley's horror at the proposed mas- 
sacre was less than his grief at the probable waste of the whiskey which 
Baylor intended to use to inveigle the poor, confiding Indians. A pre- 
cious set of scoundrels, these Texan officers ! Yet fair specimens of the 
" Southern Chivalry." 



HORRID TREATMENT AND MURDER OF NEGRO BOYS AND 

COOKS. 

Shocking brutalities were committed upon a number of negroes who were 
employed as waiters and cooks, upon several Union steamboats on the 
Cumberland river. These boats, five in number, which were transporting 
commissary stores and wounded soldiers, were taken and burnt by the re- 
bels at Harpeth Shoals. The transports, were, of course, fair objects for 
capture ; but the hospital boats received no more consideration than though 
they had been war vessels. The officers and men were subjected to the 
greatest indignities, and after being robbed of their clothes were placed on 
shore and paroled. But for the poor negroes no kind of cruelty was 
deemed too severe by their captors. " TTiese unarmed and defenceless men 
were stripped of (heir clothing, tied to trees, and cowhided." They were 
then put ashore and left to perish on the uninhabited banks of the river, 
where escape was impossible. Such barbarities are enough to make one 
lose all faith in human nature. It is proper to remark that these brutali- 
ties were committed under the eye of the rebel Brigadier-General Forrest. 
— New Tork Illustrated News, Feb. 7, 1863. 

Fuller particulars of this cold-blooded barbarity were published in the 
4 



30 

New Albany (Indiana) Ledger, of the 20th of January, 1863. They 
are as follows : 

" The most atrocious and cold-blooded affair of tlie present war is the 
shooting of some eighteen of the negi'o cabin boys and cooks on the steam- 
ers lately captured at Harpeth Shoals. These men and boys were tied 
and taken to an open field near the Shoals, and deliberately shot down in 
cold blood. Two of the negro servants on the Sidell got in between the 
wheel and stern of the boat, and let themselves down into the water, hold- 
ing on to the rudder. They were discovered by the rebels, and several sol- 
diers were ordered into a skiff, and rowing close up to the unfortunate ne- 
groes, discharged the contents of their muskets at them, literally blowing 
their heads into atoms. 

" The damnable villany of such cold-blooded murder cannot but fill 
every heart with the fiercest indignation, and will beget measures of the 
bloodiest retaliation. 

" The life of the chambermaid of the Trio was saved by Mr. Hurley, 
the clerk, claiming her as his slave, whom he was removing to Kentucky. 
And even with this pretext he had the greatest difiiculty in saving her from 
death at the hands of the bloody-minded commander of the rebels. Colonel 
Wade. We hope this scoundrel may be captured, and if he is, quartering 
would be a slight penalty for his villanous murder of these unoffending 
negroes. His acts of barbarity have scarcely an equal, even in the his- 
tory of the most savage warfare." 



CONTRABANDS DRIVEN SOUTH OR SHOT. 

A correspondent from Murfreesboro writes : 

" All contrabands captured by the rebels on the Federal wagon-trains 
are immediately shot. Twenty thus killed are lying on the Murfreesboro 
Pike." 



UNIONISTS IN MISSISSIPPI HUNTED DOWN BY BLOOD-HOUNDS, 
AND THEIR DWELLINGS BURNED.— OFFICIAL REPORT OF 
THESE BARBARITIES. 

Repeated statements have been made that in various parts of the rebel- 
lious States, blood-hounds, (which are kept by slave-owners to hunt down 
and recapture runaway slaves) were employed to hunt down Unionists 
who had fled to the deep recesses of the mountain, swamps and forests, to 



31 

escape the conscription, or for protection from the cruelties of the rebel 
ofiBcers. Narratives of these have, from time to time, appeared in our pub- 
lic journals. The following appeared in the Washington papers, to which, 
as well as to the New York papers, it was officially communicated on the 
6th of March, 1863. 

Headquarters District of Corinth, ) 
Mississippi, Jan. 24, 1863. ) 

Captain — I have the honor to submit a few of the outrages committed 
upon citizens of x\labama by the confederate troops. While all their lead- 
ers, from the President down, are boasting of their carrying on this war in 
accordance with the laws that govern nations in such cases, and are charg- 
ing upon our troops all kinds of depredations and outrages, I think a few 
simple facts might put them to blush, and make those parties and our 
press and people who are seconding the efforts of Davis to cast a stigma on 
us, ashamed of the work they are doing. I will state merely what I know 
to be true. Abe Canadi and Mr. Mitchel were hung two weeks ago for 
being Union men. They lived on Hacklebon settlement, Marion county, 
Alabama. Mr. Hallwork and his daughter, of the same county, were 
both shot for the same cause ; the latter was instantly killed ; the former is 
still alive, but will probably die. Peter Leiois and three of his neighbors 
were hunted down by one hundred bloodhounds and captured. 

The houses of Messrs. Palmer, Welsby, Williams and the three neigh- 
bors, and of some thirty others, were burned over their heads. The 
women and children were turned out of doors, and the community was 
notified that if they allowed them to go into their houses, or fed or harbor- 
ed them in any manner, they would be served in the same manner. 

Mr. Peterson, living at the head of Bull Mountain, was shot. 

I am now feeding some hundred of these families, who, with their wives 
and children, some grey haired men, and even cripples on crutches, were 
driven out and found their way here through the woods and by-ways with- 
out food or shelter. All this was done for the simple reason that they were 
Union men, or that they had brothers or relations in our army. 

The statements of those people are almost beyond belief, did we not 
have the evidence before us. I am informed by them that there are hun- 
dreds of loyal men and women in the woods of Alabama waiting for an 
opportunity to escape. 

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

Or. M. Dodge, Brig. Gen. 

Capt. R. M*. Sawyer, A. A. Gr., Memphis. 



32 

SUFFERINGS OF LOYALISTS IN WEST VIRGINIA, 

Dr. Watson, of the Senate of Western Virginia, in a communication to 
the Wheeling Intelligencer, in which he corrects' certain misstatements of 
a secession organ of that city, gives some very interesting information as 
to the sufferings experienced by many of the citizens of that state who 
iave fallen into the hands of the rebels. Dr. Watson mentions cases of 
the grossest cruelty to men, women and children, who have been seized 
and carried into captivity. Among others, he names the case of a Mrs. 
Spiggott, sister of the newly-elected United States senator. Judge Bowden, 
who, with her four children, is now imprisoned in a dungeon in Richmond, 
for no crime in the world save her unconquerable attachment to the Union. 
Another case is that of a Mr. Mannocks, of Wilhamsburg, who was drag- 
ged from his home— his family left to want — and sent to Salisbury, N. C, 
and is now there in a filthy cell. This man was one of the most inoffen- 
sive citizens in the state, and never harmed or "wronged any one, loyal or 
disloyal. The case of Mr. Mannocks is the case also of a Mr. Morrison, 
on old man seventy years of age, taken from near Elizabeth City more 
than a year ago, and ever since confined in prison. 

Dr. Watson, with a view to the prevention of such barbarous outrages 
in the future, and for the relief of present sufferers^ lately introduced in 
the state Senate the following resolutions, which were immediately passed, 
without a dissenting voice : 

Whereas, It is represented to the General Assembly that the rebel au- 
thorities in Vir^ia have arrested and now have confined in prison many 
citizens, civilians and non-combatants, including men, women and children, 
on the pretence of their disloyalty to the pretended Southern Confederacy j 
therefore, it is 

Resolved, By the General Assembly that the President of the United 
States be and he is hereby respectfully requested to order commanding offi- 
cers in this state to retaliate, by arresting or causing to be arrested such 
number of known adherents or sympathizers with the pretended Confeder- 
acy as, in his opinion, may be expedient, to be held in close confinement, 
as hostages, and subjected in all respects, as nearly as Baay be, to the same 
treatment which is imposed upon loyal citizens by the said pretended gov- 
ernment ; and to make such other or further order as in his opinion shall 
be necessary to effect the release of such citizens as are now, or may here- 
after, be 80 arrested and confined by the rebel authority. 



CRUELTIES OF THE SOUTHERN WOMEN. 

General Butler wa8 severely censured by the apologists of secession for 
his celebration " women order.*' But the revelations which the war is 
making of the ferocity of female secessionists are fast dissipating any ro.se- 
\vater notions people may have entertained as to the justice of that order. 
A gentleman who recently fell in with an intelligent Illinois oflBcer gives 
the following as the result of his observations and experience among the 
women of the rebel states : 

' ' The men are brave and bitter ; the southern women ten-fold worse 
than the men. He says in a recent battle, when our men were compelled 
to charge through a .small town in pursuit of the rebels, they were shot 
down by women and girls, armed with revolvers and shot-guns, from win- 
dows and crevices in the buildings which lined the street. Of course our 
troops returned the fire, but, with a foe in front, but little could be done 
to dislodge these female desperadoes. Exasperated by the galling fire 
from these buildings, the torch was applied and the town destroyed. Was 
it wrong ? If so, the natural instinct of self-preservation should Ije rooted 
out of the army. At another time, this captain said his regiment was 
marching through the country in Tennessee, and passing near a planter's 
house, five women were noticed standing near the gate. He took no no- 
tice of them. The right division of his company had passed them ; 
as the left devision came opposite, these five women drew revolvers 
and fired into the ranks, killing two men instantly, and mortally wound- 
ing another. Impulsively our soldiers, without orders, returned the 
fire, killing four of the women and severely wounding the fifth. Gen- 
eral Ross (I think) commanded the devision, and hearing the firing, gal- 
loped up to learn the cause. He was disposed to censure the captain for 
allowing his troops to fire at women. The captain pleaded first, that the 
firing; was done without his knowledge or order, and second that he could 
not punish his men for firing upon women when they unses themselves 
by deliberately murdering Union soldiers. He would leave the service 
first. So long as women behave as women should, he would do what he 
could to protect them ; but when they assume the place of men and the 
character of combatants, he would treat them as such, and justify his men 
in so doing." — JVew York Evening Post. 

A Southern Woman Desires to Dance in the Blood of a Union Sol- 
dier. — In accounts given by Commissary Packham, of Piatt's Zouaves, 
34th regiment, Ohio volunteers, printed elsewhere, is a notice of a Mrs. 



34 

Gilkinson, to whose house, ih Western Virginia, several Federal prisoners 
were taken by their rebel captors and confined during the night. In the 
morning there was a difference of opinion as to the disposal of the pris- 
oners. Some wished to send them to Richmond, others to Logan Court 
House, the head-quarters of the rebel troops, while others proposed to kill 
them on the spot. The Virginia lady, Mrs. Gilkinson, writes Commissary 
Packham, "to the eternal disgi'ace of Southern female fiends, wished one 
of the prisoners to he killed on her own porch, so that she could dance in 
his blood f/^^ — Harper's Weekly. 



TKEATMENT OF THE QUAKERS IN NORTH CAROLINA. 

Extract of a letter from Philadelphia to the New York Tribune, dated 
Aug. 6, 1863. — " The leading particulars of one of the most remarkable 
events in this war have just been communicated to me. You know that 
many of the Society of Friends have lotig resided in North Carolina, and that 
a fundamental article of their faith is a refusal to take up arms under any 
circumstances whatever. In the early stages of the rebellion the rebel 
powers of North Carolina, well knowing their peaceful principles, permit- 
ted them to pass unmolested, though known to be unconditional Union men. 
But as time went on, disaster to the rebellion succeeded to disaster, men 
were captured, killed or disabled to so fearful an extent, that every one out 
of the army must be brought into it. 

Early this year the conscription fell upon the Friends. In one neigh- 
borhood, some twelve of them were drafted. In accordance with their 
well-known principles, they refused to join the army. But everywhere the 
reign of terror prevailed, and they were forced into the ranks. Here mus- 
kets were given to them, but every man of them refused even to touch the 
weapons. Every conceivable insult and outrage was heaped upon them ; 
they were tied up, starved and whipped. Still they remained firm to their 
conscientious convictions, and refused to fight. Finally, the muskets were 
actually strapped to their bodies. 

One of these Friends was singled out as especially obnoxious, and was 
whipped unmercifully. The officer in charge was lawless and brutal, and 
on one occasion ordered him to be shot as an example to others. He called 
out a file of men to shoot him. "While his executioners were drawn up 
before him, standing within twelve feet of their victim, the latter, raising 
his eyes to heaven, and elevating his hands, cried out in a loud voice : 
" Father, forgive them ; they know not what they do." Instantly came 



35 

the order to fire. But instead of obeying it, the men dropped their 
muskets and refused, declaring that they could not kill such a man. 

This refusal so enraged the officer that he knocked his victim down in 
the road, and then strove repeatedly to trample him to death under his 
horse's feet. But the animal persistently refused to even step over his 
prostrate body. In the end, they were marched with the rebel army to 
Gettysburg. In that battle they remained entirely passive, fired no shots, 
and in God alone trusted for preservation. Very early in the action the 
oflScer refen-ed to was killed. The Friends, all unhurt, were taken pris- 
oners and sent to Fort Delaware. Here, by accident, it became known in 
this city that several Friends were among the captured, and two members 
of the Society went down to inquire into the circumstances, but they were 
refused permission to see them. They went immediately to Washington, 
and there obtained an order for their discharge, conditioned on their taking 
an affirmation of their allegiance. This opened the prison door. The 
affirmation made, these martyrs for conscience sake were released, and are 
now here." 



TREATMENT OF PRISONERS TAIvEN AT CHANCELLORSVILLE 
AND OTHER PLACES. 

A correspondent of the Springfield (Mass.) Republican, who was 
taken pi-isoner at Chancellorsville and sent to Richmond, gives the follow 
ing account of rebel hospitality ; 

" I have been among Italian brigands, and Greek pirates, and Bedouin 
Arabs, but for making a clean thing of the robbing business, commend me 
to the Confederate States of America, so styled. They descend to the 
minutiae of the profession in a way that should be instructive to all novices 
in the art. Nothing is too small to escape their microscopic rapacity. 
No article of apparel is sacred from their omnivorous clutches ; no crumb 
of provision but their acute olfactories will smell it out. They ransacked 
our haversacks, aud confiscated the little rat'ons of sugar we happened to 
have therein as contraband of war. They stripped the canteens from the 
shoulders of the thirsty soldiers, and are sending them off on a long 
march, to suffer no small inconvenience from this privation. They are tak- 
ing away all our blankets, without which these cold nights will be almost 
insupportable till we can obtain a new supply. They picked our pockets 
of the few stray envelopes aud sheets and half sheets of writing paper we 
chanced to possess ; and this, be it understood, not as a precaution to pre 



3fi 

vent our writing in prison. There is no regulation to prevent that, no pro- 
liibition of our sending out and purchasing all the paper we wished. But 
it is just a specimen of the scale on which they conduct business. 

" And in another way the official proceedings of this chivalrous Confed- 
eracy are just about as small. A system of petty annoyance and oppre- 
sion, on the smallest possible scale, has been uniformly observed in reference 
to the Union prisoners in their hands. When they wished to remove the 
hundred or so Federal officers by rail from Guinney's Station to Richmond, 
they ordered us to prepare to move at 3 p. m., kept us standing in ranks 
in a pouring rain for several houi's, tlien marched us half a mile to the cars, 
and kept us waiting there, the rain still pouring furiously upon us, till half- 
past 10 p. M., when they marched us back to our flooded camps again, 
with orders to be in readiness at a moment's notice, two or three hours 
hence, or any time during the night. 

" Losing all our rest that night, and wandering about, forlorn and drip- 
ping, we heard nothing more of moving till the next afternoon about four 
o'clock, when we were put through the same process of waiting, and the 
second time kicked our heels about the station in the deep mud till seven 
or eight p. m., when we were ordered back to camp again, but afterward 
did get aboard and spend the night in the box cars (awfully dirty) , al- 
though we did not move till noon the third day. All this, of course, as a 
mere annoyance to us, and to make a display of their power, as nothing 
could be easier than to know when there was a train for us. And of a 
piece with this is the order given to the sentinels here to prevent us from 
looking out of the windows of the Libby, on pain of being fired upon. 
In the same style is pretty much the whole of the Confederate behavior to 
us-ward. 

Lieut. Kenyon, of the 28th N. Y. volunteers, lately returned from 
Richmond, tells a similar account of cruelties. Their food, until they reached 
Richmond, would hardly sustain life. "Upon our march," says Lieut. 
Kenyon, " away from Richmond, a variety of cruelties and annoyances were 
inflicted upon the paroled men by the rebel guard. They were made to 
march nine miles without a minute's halt, and when the men fell down from 
absolute exhaustion, they were forced up and into the ranks at the point of 
the bayonet, being assailed with words of the coarsest abuse. Greueral offi- 
cers and privates were treated alike in this respect ; and all this was done, 
too, when a railway train almost empty was accompanying the march." 

• ' While passing through Petersburg they were assailed by the residents 
of the place with bad language, and even ladies pressed forward to insidt 



the prisoners. In this respect Peter.-liuvii; was t;<r lumv. {lenioiistrative tlutij 
Richmond." — Neic York Evening J-'ost. 

Federal Prisoners Bayoneted at Ball's Bluff. — The llev. Mr. 
Aughey, rehites some of the barbarities towards the Union soldiers taken 
in battle which almost surpass belief. All the Southern accounts of the 
battle of Leesburg, (which we call the battle of Ball's Bluff,) he says 
concur in one particular, which is, that " when the Federal troops retreated 
to the river, after being overpowered by superior numbers, and had thrown 
down their arms, calling for quarter, no mercy was shown them. Hun- 
dreds ivere bayoneted, or forced into the river and drowned. The rebels 
clubbed their guns, and dashed out the brains of many while kneeling at 
their feet and .imploring mercy. I saw one ruffian who boasted that he 
had bayoneted seven Yankee prisoners captured on that occasion."' 



HORRORS OF THE IvNOXVILLE (TEXX.) JAU.. 

x\n officer of the forty-fourth Ohio regiment, who has just been released 
from the Knoxville (Tenn.) jail, reports that there is a strong, out- 
spoken Union sentiment at Knoxville. The jail there, is filled with loyal 
citizens of Tennessee, who are treated with all possible harshness and cru- 
elty, and are kept in a most loathsome manner. The jail is so crowded 
that the prisoners are compelled to take turns in sleeping. There are in 
it six cages about ten feet square. In each of which there are confined 
from five to seven prisoners — generally those who are the strongest friends 
of the old Union. In addition to these, the rebels have in jail three fed- 
eral officers, in chains. They are Captain Harris, of the third Tennessee 
cavalry. Captain Deacon, of the second Tennessee infantry, and Lieuten- 
ant Rodgers, of the first Tennessee cavalry. Captain Harris was once 
sentenced to death, but his father paid seventy-five thousand dollars to have 
his sentence commuted to imprisonment for life. The Union women of 
Knoxville do all they are allowed to do for the relief of the sufferings of 
the prisoners. The guard of tlie jail is composed almost entirely of boys, 
the men havins; been sent to the field. 



THE MURDER OF COLOXEL CAMEROX. 

A few days after the evacuation of Jackson by our forces, Gen. Grant 
sent two wagon loads of provision back from our front under a flag of truce 



38 

for the Use of our wounded there. The officer in charge was a major of 
the 2d Illinois cavalry. When within two miles of the town, our men were 
met by the rebel pickets, who at first would permit them to proceed no fur- 
ther. The major in command refused to deliver the provisions to any 
other person than the Union surgeon in chrage of our wounded at Jackson, 
and was finally allowed to enter the town, blindfolded, while Confederate 
soldiers drove his teams. He found the citizens very much excited, and 
very indignant about the sacking of the city by our soldiers. They insult" 
ed him i-epeatedly. 

While there he heard of the murder of Col. Cameron, of the 47th Illi^ 
nois, by a party of rebel cavalry. Col. Cameron remained behind our 
forces after the evacuation of Jackson, to urge stragglers forward. He 
was alone without any of his command. At the public square a crowd of 
citizens surrounded him, and commenced heaping violent abuse upon him^ 
He replied to them, kindly and pleasantly, that he was sorry for the existence 
of the war, and hoped it would soon end, but only in the restoration of 
the Union. He had a wife and family at home, he said, and he much pre- 
ferred their company to the army. Finding that he was exciting a good 
deal of sympathy, a rebel officer marched up and made a breach through 
the crowd, through which he could pass. Col. Cameron rode off. He had 
gone but a short distance when a squad of rebel cavali-y dashed after him, 
overtook him, and shot him through the heart. This is the story of an 
Episcopal Bishop who lives in the city. 



MORE REBEL BARBARITIES. 

The Columbus (Ky.) War Eagle of a recent date gives the following ; 

" The victim was a Union man, named Jordan Hills, and Uved on the 
Mobile and Ohio Railroad, eighteen miles from Troy. On the 27th of 
March, Mr. Hills was taken by a party of men claiming to belong to Daw- 
son's baud of rebel guerrillas ; he was tied up and whipped, and after- 
wards gagged, his ears and nose cut off, and three of his fingers amputa- 
ted and carried away as trophies and souvenirs ! Afterwards, his skull was 
laid open with a sabre, and his brains scattered and trampled upon by the 
murderers — and all because he was a Union man, and not a traitor." 

The chaplain of a New Jersey regiment in McClellan's army writes : 

" The savage barbarity with which rebel soldiers have treated our men 
who have fallen into their hands as prisoners, has greatly diminished the 
sympathies with which these captives would be otherwise regarded. But 



S9 

even now they are as Well fed as our own men, iu some instances even 
better. 

" I command my men to restrain themselves, and not descend to the 
level of these savages by committing the same atrocities, even in revenge. 
But when the rebels persist in these outrages, and our government and 
commanding officers themselves permit them, the wild torrent of revenge 
may break forth among our soldiers at any moment." 



OUR WOUNDED AT CIL\.RLESTON.— THE COLORED SOLDIERS. 

Extract of a letter from Morris Island, printed in the New York 
Tribune ; 

" The Charleston papers, from the 21st to the '24th inst., all say that six 
hundred and fifty of our killed were buried on the Sunday morning after 
the assualt. This extraordinary proportion of the killed to the wounded 
could not have been reached without an indiscriminate murdering of our 
soldiers, after they had fallen, wounded and helpless, 

Our entire loss in killed, wounded and missing, according to official re- 
port, was but one thousand five hundred and seventeen ; if six hundred 
and fifty of that number were buried, as rebel officers and rebel news- 
papers solemnly assert, it was the most fearful slaughter, considering the 
numbers engaged, of the war. 

One hundred and eight of our wounded are still at Charleston and 
Columbia. The officers and men of the 54th Massachusetts (colored) will 
not be given up, nor has it yet been positively ascertained what has be- 
come of them. 

Unofficial reports say the negroes have been sold into slavery^ and that 
the officers are treated with unmeasured abuses. 

Of the latter there is no doubt whatever. I have conversed with sev- 
eral officers who were exchanged on Friday, and they all tell me that the 
first question asked them was whether they commanded negro troops. If 
the response was in the negative, they were told it was fortunate for them, 
for every d — d nigger commander would be hung or shot at sight. 

There is but one opinion with regard to the treatment our wounded re- 
ceived in Charleston. It was ciniel, shameful, barbarous. Nearly every 
sentiment of humanity seems to have departed from these South Carolina 
wretches. The slightest gun-shot wound, which our army surgeons would 
have soon healed, immediately suggested to these professional butchers the 
knife, the saw, amputation, and, in this climate, death. 



40 

Rvery n|tp()rtnnity to uiutilate the body by amputation was seized upon, 
and after the operation was performed, the surgeons seemed profoundly in- 
different wliether a spark of life remained or not. This shameful treat- 
ment was not confined to the severely wounded, but nearly all who were 
so unfortunate as to fall into their hands. " 

As it has since been ascertained that the colored soldiers, taken prisoners, 
had been or would be sold into slavery, the President has ordered that the 
same number of rebel prisoners be placed at hard labor until the colored 
soldiers have been liberated, or treated like other prisoners. 



UNION WOMEN TAKEN PRISONERS.— THEIR CRUEL TREAT- 
MENT. 

A number of women, with their children, arrived in Philadelphia, late 
on Wednesday night, in charge of J. B. Brown, of the Sanitary Commis- 
sion of Washington. They had been captured from Milroy's command at 
Winchester, Virginia, and were sent to Richmond as prisoners ; most of 
them belong to Ohio, and were on a visit to their husbands, who were sick. 
They speak severely of the treatment they received at the hands of the re- 
bels ; much of their clothing and money was taken from them. One of 
them requested to see her husband, who was sick, but was told she could 
not do it unless he died. Several of them saw their clothes sold at public 
auction, and on their way to prison they were hooted at by the women 
and boys of Richmond. Last Sunday the rebels took all their deserters 
out of prison and armed them. Some of them had been in prison for near 
two years. Among them were some not more than fourteen years of age, 
and others from sixty to seventy years old. — New York Evening Post, 
July 10, 1863. 



BUTCHERY OF NJ;GR0ES IN ALABAMA. 

Rev. J. B. Rogers, chaplain of the fourteenth Wisconsin regiment, who 
has been in charge of the freed blacks at Cairo for some months, confirms 
a statement which appeared in the papers last fall, of the fiendish barbarity 
of the rebels in Northern Alabama, which was so monstrous as to be re- 
ceived with incredulity. He says that the rebels actually butchered about 
a thousand blacks, to prevent them falling into the hands of the Union 
army. Two hundred were confined in a large building, the building fired, 
and every one of them burned to death. — -New York Evening Post, April 
25, 1863. 



THE 



BARBARITIES OF THE REBELS, 



AS SIIOWX IN THEIR 



CRUELTY TO THE FEDERAL WOUNDED AND PRISONERS; IN 
THKIR OUTRAGES UPON UNION MEN; IN THE MUR- 
DER OF NEGROES, AND IN THEIR UNMAN- 
LY CONDUCT THROUGHOUT 
THE REBELLION. 



BY COLONEL PEPtCY HOAYAED. 

LATE OP THE EOYAL H0K3E GUARDS. 



PROVIDENCE, R. I. 

PRINTED FOR TIIE ADTUOR. 

1863. 






V 



mamm 



